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Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds (Swedish pronunciation: ˈtuːrvalds ; born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for having initiated the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator. Biography Early years Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,TORVALDS, 2001 and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. Both of his parents were campus radicals at the University of Helsinki in the 1960s. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's population. Torvalds was named after Linus Pauling, the American Nobel Prize-winning chemist, although in the book Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution, Torvalds is quoted as saying, "I think I was named equally for Linus the Peanuts cartoon character," noting that this makes him half "Nobel-prize-winning chemist" and half "blanket-carrying cartoon character". Torvalds attended the University of Helsinki from 1988 to 1996, graduating with a master's degree in computer science from NODES research groupNODES research group. His academic career was interrupted after his first year of study when he joined the Finnish Army, selecting the 11-month officer training program to fulfill the mandatory military service of Finland. In the army he held the rank of second lieutenant, with the role of fire controller, calculating positions of guns, targets, and trajectories, finally telling the guns where to shoot.Torvalds, 2001, page 29 In 1990, he resumed his university studies, and was exposed to UNIX for the first time, in the form of a DEC MicroVAX running ULTRIX.Torvalds, 2001, page 53 His M.Sc. thesis was titled Linux: A Portable Operating System. His interest in computers began with a Commodore VIC-20.TORVALDS, 2001, pages 6-7 After the VIC-20 he purchased a Sinclair QL which he modified extensively, especially its operating system. He programmed an assembly language and a text editor for the QL, as well as a few games.TORVALDS, 2001, pages 41-46 He is known to have written a Pac-Man clone named Cool Man. On January 2, 1991 he purchased an Intel 80386-based IBM PCTorvalds, 2001, page 60 and spent a month playing the game Prince of Persia before receiving his MINIX copy which in turn enabled him to begin his work on Linux. Later years Linus Torvalds is married to Tove Torvalds (née Monni) — a six-time Finnish national karate champion — whom he first met in the autumn of 1993.TORVALDS, 2001, page 123 Torvalds was running introductory computer laboratory exercises for students and instructed the course attendants to send him an e-mail as a test, to which Tove responded with an e-mail asking for a date. Tove and Linus were later married and have three daughters, Patricia, Daniela, and Celeste.Torvalds' bio on nndb.com After a visit to Transmeta in late 1996, he accepted a position at the company in California, where he would work from February 1997 through June 2003. He then moved to the Open Source Development Labs, which has since merged with the Free Standards Group to become the Linux Foundation, under whose auspices he continues to work. In June 2004, Torvalds and his family moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to the OSDL's Beaverton, Oregon-based headquarters. From 1997 to 1999 he was involved in 86open helping to choose the standard binary format for Linux and Unix. Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. In 1999, both companies went public and Torvalds' net worth shot up to roughly $20 million. Linus Torvalds: A Very Brief and Completely Unauthorized Biography His personal mascot is a penguin nicknamed Tux, which has been widely adopted by the Linux community as the mascot of the Linux kernel. Although Torvalds believes that "open source is the only right way to do software", he also has said that he uses the "best tool for the job", even if that includes proprietary software.Linus Torvalds at Google, on Git, 9:50-10:00 He has been criticized for his use and alleged advocacy of the proprietary BitKeeper software for version control in the Linux kernel. However, Torvalds has since written a free-software replacement for BitKeeper called Git. Torvalds has commented on official GNOME developmental mailing lists that, in terms of desktop environments, he encourages users to switch to KDE.Printing dialog and GNOMELinus versus GNOME However, Torvalds thought KDE 4.0 was a "disaster" because of its lack of maturity, so he temporarily switched to GNOME."it was a half-baked release (...) I'll revisit it when I reinstall the next machine"Q&A: Linux founder Linus Torvalds talks about open-source identity The Linus/Linux connection Initially Torvalds wanted to call the kernel he developed Freax (a combination of "free", "freak", and the letter X to indicate that it is a Unix-like system), but his friend Ari Lemmke, who administered the FTP server where the kernel was first hosted for downloading, named Torvalds' directory linux. Authority on Linux About 2% of the Linux kernel as of 2006 was written by Torvalds himself. Since Linux has had thousands of contributors, such a percentage represents a significant personal contribution to the overall amount of code. Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on what new code is incorporated into the standard Linux kernel.Henrik Ingo. Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source. Ingram, 2005. 42-45. Online version Linux trademark Torvalds owns the "Linux" trademark, and monitorsLinus Explains Linux Trademark Issues use of it chiefly through the Linux Mark Institute. Recognition *In 1996 Asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after Linus Torvalds. *In 1997 he received his Master degree (Laudatur Grade) from Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki. *In 1998 he received an EFF Pioneer Award.Torvalds, Stallman, Simons Win 1998 Pioneer Awards *In 1999 he received honorary doctor status at Stockholm University. *The 1999 novel Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson features several characters who use "Finux", a Unix-like operating system developed in Finland. *In 2000 he received honorary doctor status at University of Helsinki.Torvalds, 2001, page 28 *In 2000 he was awarded the Lovelace Medal.Talking to Torvalds, British Computer Society, September 2007. *In the ''Time'' magazine's Person of the Century Poll, Torvalds was voted at #17 at the poll's close in 2000.The Person of the Century Poll Results *In 2001, he shared the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Well-Being with Richard Stallman and Ken Sakamura. *In 2004, he was named one of the most influential people in the world by the ''Time'' magazine article "Linus Torvalds: The Free-Software Champion" by Lawrence Lessig, Time Magazine, posted Monday, Apr. 26, 2004, retrieved October 3, 2006. *In the search for the 100 Greatest Finns of all time, voted in the summer of 2004, Torvalds placed 16th. *In 2005 he appeared as one of "the best managers" in a survey by BusinessWeek.The Best & Worst Managers Of The Year *In August 2005, Torvalds received the Vollum Award from Reed College.Linux creator Linus Torvalds honored with Reed College's Vollum Award *In 2006, Business 2.0 magazine named him one of "10 people who don't matter" because the growth of Linux has shrunk Torvalds' individual impact.10 people who don't matter *In 2006, ''Time'' Magazine—Europe Edition named him one of the revolutionary heroes of the past 60 years.Linus Torvalds *In 2008, he was inducted into the Hall of Fellows of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. See also * Linus' Law * Tanenbaum–Torvalds debate * Just for Fun Notes References * * * External links *Linus' blog *Torvalds's home page (quite outdated) *Leader of the Free World - How Linus Torvalds became the benevolent dictator of Planet Linux, the biggest collaborative project in history (Wired News) *The birth of Tux: Why Linus Torvalds chose a penguin as the Linux mascot *[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc5a044b?dmode=source What would you like to see most in minix?], thread begun by the first Usenet post by Linus Torvalds referencing his new project, followed by the advice and requests for features he received in those early weeks when Linux was first being planned *Linus Torvalds and His Five Entrepreneurial Lessons *[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2736 Linux Journal] - 1 March 1994 *[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3655 Linux Journal] - 1 November 1999 * *Linus' mailing list activity *Ten years of NODES af:Linus Torvalds ar:لينوس تورفالدس an:Linus Torvalds ast:Linus Torvalds az:Linus Torvalds bn:লিনুস তোরভাল্দ্‌স zh-min-nan:Linus Torvalds be:Лінус Торвальдс bar:Linus Torvalds bs:Linus Torvalds br:Linus Torvalds bg:Линус Торвалдс ca:Linus Torvalds cs:Linus Torvalds da:Linus Torvalds de:Linus Torvalds et:Linus Torvalds el:Λίνους Τόρβαλντς es:Linus Torvalds eo:Linus Torvalds eu:Linus Torvalds fr:Linus Torvalds ga:Linus Torvalds gl:Linus Torvalds ko:리누스 토르발스 hi:लीनुस तूरवाल्द्स hr:Linus Torvalds id:Linus Torvalds ia:Linus Torvalds is:Linus Torvalds it:Linus Torvalds he:לינוס טורבאלדס jv:Linus Torvalds kn:ಲೈನಸ್ ಟೋರ್ವಾಲ್ಡ್ಸ್ ka:ლინუს ტორვალდსი ht:Linus Torvalds ku:Linus Torvalds lv:Linuss Torvaldss lb:Linus Torvalds lt:Linusas Torvaldsas li:Linus Torvalds lmo:Linus Torvalds hu:Linus Torvalds mk:Линус Торвалдс ml:ലിനസ്‌ ബെനഡിക്റ്റ്‌ ടോര്‍വാള്‍ഡ്സ്‌ mr:लिनस तोरवाल्ड्स ms:Linus Torvalds nl:Linus Torvalds ja:リーナス・トーバルズ no:Linus Torvalds nn:Linus Torvalds oc:Linus Torvalds nds:Linus Torvalds pl:Linus Torvalds pt:Linus Torvalds ro:Linus Torvalds ru:Торвальдс, Линус sah:Линус Торвальдс sc:Linus Torvalds sq:Linus Torvalds scn:Linus Torvalds simple:Linus Torvalds sk:Linus Torvalds sl:Linus Torvalds szl:Linus Torvalds ckb:لینوس تورڤالدس sr:Линус Торвалдс sh:Linus Torvalds fi:Linus Torvalds sv:Linus Torvalds tl:Linus Torvalds th:ลินุส โตร์วัลดส์ tg:Линус Торвалдс tr:Linus Torvalds uk:Лінус Торвальдс ur:لینس ٹورویلڈس vi:Linus Torvalds yi:לינוס טארוואלדס zh:林纳斯·托瓦兹 Category:Finnish computer programmers Category:Free software programmers Category:Computer pioneers Category:Linux kernel hackers Category:People from Helsinki Category:People from Portland, Oregon Category:People in information technology Category:Swedish-speaking Finns Category:Finnish bloggers Category:University of Helsinki alumni Category:1969 births Category:Living people